Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/269

 CLAIMS TO AMPHIPOLIS. 247 Athens in 424-423 B. c. by Brasidas, through the improvidence of the Athenian officers Eukles and Thucydides, then recolonized under Lacedaemonian auspices, it had ever since remained an independent city ; though Sparta had covenanted to restore it by the peace of Nikias (421 B. c.), but had never performed her cove- nant. Its unparalleled situation, near to both the bridge and mouth of the Strymon, in the midst of a fertile territory, within reach of the mining district of Pangaeus, rendered it a tempting prize ; and the right of Athens to it was indisputable ; so far as original colonization before the capture by Brasidas, and formal treaty of cession by Sparta after the capture, could confer a right. But this treaty, not fulfilled at the time, was now fifty years old. The repugnance of the Amphipolitan population, which had origi- nally prevented its fulfilment, was strengthened by all the sanction of a long prescription ; while the tomb and chapel of Brasidas their second founder, consecrated in the agora, served as an im- perishable admonition to repel all pretensions on the part of Ath- ens. Such pretensions, whatever might be the right, were de- plorably impolitic unless Athens was prepared to back them by strenuous efforts of men and money ; from which we shall find her shrinking now as she had done (under the unwise advice of Nikias) in 421 B. c., and the years immediately succeeding. In fact, the large renovated pretensions of Athens both to Amphipolis and to other places on the Macedonian and Chalkidic coast, combined with her languor and inertness in military action, will be found hence- forward among the greatest mischiefs to the general cause of Hel- lenic independence, and among the most effective helps to the well- conducted aggressions of Philip of Macedon. ides. At least, if (which is barely possible) Alexander ever did acquire the spot, he must have lost it afterwards ; for it was occupied by the Edonian Thracians, both in 465 B. c., when Athens made her first unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony there, and in 437 B. c., when she tried again with better success under Agnon, and established Amphipolis (Thucyd. iv, 102). The expression of JEschines, that Amyntas in 371 B. c. "gave up or re- ceded from" Amphipolis (uv d' 'Apvvrae uTrean? De Fals. Leg. 1 c.) can at most only be construed as referring to rights which he may have claimed, since he was never in actual possession of it ; though yre cannot wonde; that the orator should use such language in addressing Philip son of Amyn- Vas, who was really master of the town,